ethical downfall Quotes

How delicious to corrupt, to stifle all semblances of virtue and religion in that young heart!

I foresee that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.

Once you start doing something bad, then it's easy to take the next step - and in the end, you're a moral sewer.

No man ever became very wicked all at once.

All disgrace smells alike. Differences in ruin are only matters of degree.

Hubris, arrogance, is just one step ahead of loss of integrity, because if you think you're better than other people, you know more, then you're going to think, as many leaders have, that the rules don't apply to them - so they lose their integrity.

The giving way to a less sin makes way for the committing of a greater

To what gulfs A single deviation from the track Of human duties leads even those who claim The homage of mankind as their born due, And find it, till they forfeit it themselves!

Wherever we direct our view, we discover the melancholy proofs of our depravity; whether we look to ancient or modern times, to barbarous or civilized nations, to the conduct of the world around us, or to the monitor within the breast; whether we read, or hear, or act, or think, or feel, the same humiliating lesson is forced upon us.

Those who make virtue their profession are the ruin of virtue.

In human history a moral victory is always a disaster, for it debauches and degrades both the victor and the vanquished.

Become corrupt, corrupt, and you will cease to suffer!" This has been the cry of all cities to man.

The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.

To depart from righteousness is to choose a life of crushing burdens, failures, and disappointments, a life caught in the toils of endless problems that are never resolved.